Gröning's trial opened today. The former SS man posted to Auschwitz, whose work there focused on disposition of property stolen from the victims, in his opening comments declared his moral guilt for the role he played and reiterated previous statements he's made about the mass murder the Nazis carried out at the camp:

A 93-year-old former Nazi SS guard, known as the "Bookkeeper of Auschwitz", has admitted he is "morally" guilty.

Oskar Groening spoke at the beginning of his trial for being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews at the concentration camp.

He described his role of counting money confiscated from new arrivals and said he witnessed mass killings, but denied any direct role in the genocide.

If found guilty he could face three to 15 years in prison.

Addressing the judges, Mr Groening also said: "I ask for forgiveness. I share morally in the guilt but whether I am guilty under criminal law, you will have to decide.''

"For me there's no question that I share moral guilt," 93-year-old Oskar Groening told judges in Lueneburg. He admitted that he knew Jews were being sent to the gas chambers, but insisted he was never involved in killing them.

Oskar Gröning looks at the videotape lying on the table in front of him. He ponders the question for a long time. It's important to him to find the right words. Then he says: "Guilt really has to do with actions, and because I believe that I was not an active perpetrator, I don't believe that I am guilty."

If you weren't a perpetrator, what were you? An accomplice?

"I don't know. I avoid the question; it gets me in trouble. Accomplice would almost be too much for me. I would describe my role as a 'small cog in the gears.' If you can describe that as guilt, then I am guilty, but not voluntarily. Legally speaking, I am innocent."

Discussing guilt

And morally?

"From the Christian standpoint, from the standpoint of the Ten Commandments, the commandment that says: Thou shalt not kill, being an accomplice is already a violation. But this raises another question: Did the things I did make me an accomplice to murder?"

You performed a function in a system that existed solely for the purpose of killing.

"Let me put it differently: I feel guilty towards the Jewish people, guilty for being part of a group that committed these crimes, even without having been one of the perpetrators myself. I ask for forgiveness from the Jewish people. And I ask God for forgiveness."

When the tape ends, he says: "I haven't reached the answer yet." He has been searching for it for 60 years.

Oskar Gröning has said everything he can say. There are no more questions to be asked. This has to be enough. Now all he wants is to be forgiven. And if forgiveness is impossible, he at least wants to be understood...

One factor in Gröning's favor, in my opinion, is that he recognized the crimes for what they were and has for years spoken with clarity against any attempts to minimize them, explain them away, or deny them. He has said that he should not have participated in any way. Rehabilitation, deterrence, expiation, and prevention do not seem to be factors in his case. In fact, as far as deterrence goes, Gröning's moral outrage at what was done - and, yes, what he participated in - and his forthright smackdown of apologists would seem the preferable way to deter future would-be genocidaires.

This case is far from an easy one, for me anyway:

“It is without question that I am morally complicit in the murder of millions of Jews through my activities at Auschwitz,” said Gröning, a retired bank clerk, clutching his notes and looking directly at the bench. “Before the victims, I also admit to this moral guilt here, with regret and humility. But as to the question whether I am criminally culpable, that’s for you to decide.”

When minutes later the judge, Franz Kompisch, adjourned the proceedings for lunch, Gröning unpacked his plastic box and removed a cheese sandwich from its foil. As he ate, he was approached in the virtually empty courtroom by a woman pushing a walking frame.

Eighty-one-year-old Eva Mozes Kor, an Auschwitz survivor and writer who had travelled from Terre Haute in Indiana for the trial in the north German town, said to him: “Mr Gröning, I have much sympathy for you. I know this is mentally, physically and emotionally hard for you and I think you are courageous.”

Even for them, deniers are a bit unhinged regarding the Gröning trial. I surfed around a bit on this. You get the usual nutjobs decrying, as though civilization were about to come to an end, the usual mismatch of details one encounters in memories offered 40 to 60 years after the fact; most of the nitpicking in this case involves statements Gröning made about 10 years ago on BBC. (On RODOH1.0 all this was explored years ago. And, yes, Gröning has mentioned gassings . . . including in the original note he wrote to denier Thies Christopherson in the '90s - "I saw everything. The gas chambers, the cremations, the selection process. One and a half million Jews were murdered in Auschwitz. I was there." And, yes, he had too high a number murdered . . .)

What deniers can't do, as far as I can tell, though, is give any plausible rationale for Gröning insisting on a) his being told by superiors that unfit Jews were being "disposed of" at Auschwitz, b) the role he played at A-B, and c) what he says he witnessed, including a gassing and an SS man smashing a baby against a truck.

Gröning's statements at the very least put him in a morally bad light - and possibly worse, his having been investigated IIRC already in the '70s. Yet he has repeatedly made possibly incriminating statements during the '90s and thereafter.

The deniers intone important sounding BS like "bearing false witness"; they have him lying on behalf of the Hoax.

What they cannot do is explain why Gröning would do so - with the negative implications which statements carry.

Over at RODOH, Gröning is so problematic to them that been-there is cross-examining him, in absentia, like Perry Mason - and Scott Smith is reminded of Monty Python and Elvis Presley and predicts (hopes) Gröning suffers a heart attack for his troubles.

But they give no plausible explanation for Gröning's public statements other than bizarre allusions to his being part of a conspiracy of hoaxsters - the very people who now have him standing trial and, apparently, also want him dead so as to silence him in case of uncomfortable questions in the very case they've brought against him. Reading these mad revisionist ravings produces a case of mental whiplash . . .

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Another news story (click on "Read full article" in blue box) on the trial, this one focusing on how a survivor comes to grips with the complexities involved.

And meanwhile at RODOH been-there continues his meltdown, wondering why the "mainstream mass-media" is now picking up on Gröning's narrative ("What I find quite curious is that despite the mass-media now repeating over and over again the same information, and even distorting that, there is nothing new") and suggesting that the trial would be improved if Holocaust deniers could grill Gröning ("some lawyer like Sylvia Stolz could cross-examine him for the trial, to see if his admission withstands close scrutiny . . ."). Been-there complains that because he's not privy to all Gröning's letters and mss, and because the BBC doesn't broadcast its outtakes, therefore evidence is being suppressed . . . but by whom?

Been-there's musings: . . . The pointless chatter of a self-important nobody who mistakes his bilious anti-Semitism and ignorance of history for dissident insight . . .

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

That's a really hard question. I feel sympathy for him , but Ieng Sary, from the Khmer Rouge died before his trial and so did Slobodan Milosevic, both through age.

It would seem to me that our planet has to have consistent standards for people to predict their punishment. The trial must proceed and the judges alone should mitigate punishment, in lieu of remorse, based on a consistent evolving world standard.

I'm with Kor on this one, too. One thing she said that is, IMO, critical, if not-gonna-happen, is what's reported here:

. . . argued instead that any Nazis still alive should come forward to speak publicly about what they did.

In Gröning's case, he has 70 years proven "rehabilitation," there's no need for action to prevent him from serving at another "Auschwitz," he has made a sincere effort to atone and to come to grips with the issues, he's expressed remorse in an honest and unforced way (for nearly 25 years, consistently), and he's used his voice to deter others and to further public understanding of the Nazis' crimes. He is crystal clear that he is morally culpable and he doesn't try wriggling out of it. All that is left, it seems to me, is punishment, which might have made sense in 1950, for example, but, given Gröning's 70 years crime-free and two decades of years speaking out, I just don't get at this point. Nor is a trial now necessary to set legal boundaries and frameworks for the future.

Gröning's role can't be compared to that of Ieng Sary in Kampuchea or Milosevic in the Balkans. Nor did either of these leaders express remorse before dying . . . I'm not sure how they're relevant to this far different situation and case . . .

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Gröning's role can't be compared to that of Ieng Sary in Kampuchea or Milosevic in the Balkans. Nor did either of these leaders express remorse before dying . . . I'm not sure how they're relevant to this far different situation and case . . .

I agree with all the evidence that you have offered detailing Gröning's remorse and rehabilitation. My "personal" opinion as an "outsider" is that he should probably be allowed to go on probation, with a warrant (oath of some sort) to serve the community through clearly discussing his crimes and knowledge about crimes he observed.

However, it must be the courts that do reach this decision and in a strict observance of the law. I get concerned that public sentiment and informal dropping of actions, can be turned around in the future and used for the benefit of good and bad people.

I don't think this is a really good reason. Saying you're sorry doesn't erase your mistakes. True remorse means acknowledging your mistakes and facing up to the consequences - including prosecution and possible prison time. Based on the available info, he certainly is willing to face them, which definitely is a good thing.

I think this whole thing is just the German legal system trying to save face. Remember the leniency that was established in the last thread - it looks like they're trying to make up for them. It seems half-hearted to me : note that he's being tried as an accessory - rather than a full fledged perpetrator - which means he "only" faces fifteen years at most - which I find too small a sentence for even partial complicity in 300,000 deaths.

Then again, given what we do know about him, it might be that the current system - the base motive requirement for murder - actually works in his favor and is actually fair for him.

Even if he is found guilty he will likely not serve time. Karl Frenzel was retried in 1982 and sentenced (again) to life in prison, but was did not serve any additional time due to his advanced age and the fact that he was sick. Groning is 22 years older now than Frenzel was back then. Think about it.

Statistical Mechanic wrote:Gröning's role can't be compared to that of Ieng Sary in Kampuchea or Milosevic in the Balkans. Nor did either of these leaders express remorse before dying . . . I'm not sure how they're relevant to this far different situation and case . . .

I agree with all the evidence that you have offered detailing Gröning's remorse and rehabilitation. My "personal" opinion as an "outsider" is that he should probably be allowed to go on probation, with a warrant (oath of some sort) to serve the community through clearly discussing his crimes and knowledge about crimes he observed.

However, it must be the courts that do reach this decision and in a strict observance of the law. I get concerned that public sentiment and informal dropping of actions, can be turned around in the future and used for the benefit of good and bad people.

Again, a complex, tough call. But . . . Kor voluntarily made herself a co-plaintiff adding her name to the case brought by the state; there's no requirement for her to continue in that stance.

Just as, of course, there is no requirement that this case be tried. Prosecutors have to make choices on which cases to pursue - based on evidence, on how the facts relate to law, etc. I think it best to "litigate" the issues involved in the case of Gröning in the manner Kor now suggests. This situation isn't clear-cut, and my agreement with Kor on what should happen now isn't a recommendation for no trials ever again, etc.

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

Statistical Mechanic wrote: Just as, of course, there is no requirement that this case be tried. Prosecutors have to make choices on which cases to pursue - based on evidence, on how the facts relate to law, etc. I think it best to "litigate" the issues involved in the case of Gröning in the manner Kor now suggests. This situation isn't clear-cut, and my agreement with Kor on what should happen now isn't a recommendation for no trials ever again, etc.

Well, I agree with everything you have said.

The most important point you made was that the prosecutors may choose to drop a case if they feel they will not be successful. However I don't think they can drop a case if they think they are going to be successful and compelled to prosecute by other legislation. This means the sentencing, and potential mitigations for remorse, is still in the hands of the judges.

I do not know if the German prosecutors are compelled by legislation, to prosecute, in this particular matter. Dr Terry might know. I don't know.

Off TopicIn pure theory, a prosecutor's office, deciding to not prosecute, when a case is winnable, would attract the attention of anti-corruption entities. This may be a back room dynamic going on in Germany.

Hum...Well I admit that I am uneasy with those latest procedures.Especially regarding Groening. Justice, especially in America, but in other part of the world as well, granted immunity in exchange of a testimony - even to hard core criminals. This legal action is senseless and counter productive. I cannot see any positive thing coming out of it, except more Anti-Semitism, more exception laws, more hatred...It is not like we would have found a 90 years old Himmler in South America!

But maybe, if - once and for all - the world community would decide that all crimes against humanity would be judged sooner or later, regardless of what nationality the suspect is or to what regime he served, that all the criminals would be treated the same way by a world justice- independent from every governments - then maybe I would say, let's have a go.

But in the case of Groning, who has spoken out on TV in a effort to put a hold on all those deniers around the world, who said "yes, it happened, I was there" which basically allowed him to be put on trial, is absurd.

Agree - AND I think considering Gröning an accessory to Mord stretches the Demjanjuk ruling further than that ruling should be stretched. That's why I think that the prosecutor had discretion here, without violating his/her duties, as the law is not clear.

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

One of the top people on the most-wanted list of Nazis has been declared unfit for trial by prosecutors in Germany.

They said former SS lieutenant Gerhard Sommer, 93, had severe dementia. He is one of 10 ex-Nazi officers found guilty in absentia in Italy of one of the country's worst civilian wartime massacres, the murder of 560 civilians in the Tuscan village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema in August 1944.

The Nazis, retreating in northern Italy ahead of Allied troops, surrounded the village early on 12 August and in the space of a few hours murdered men, women and 119 children.

---------

For years, attempts have been made to put Sommer on trial. German prosecutors were confident that if he had been deemed fit, Sommer would "with high probability have been charged with 342 cases of murder, committed cruelly and on base motives".

The decision to drop the trial comes as Oskar Groening, another 93-year-old former Nazi, described as "The Bookkeeper of Auschwitz" is being tried in Germany on at least 300,000

I've heard of this case before. In the past, Germany refused to extradite these people to Italy because from their side, "murderous intent could not be proven". I.e. the "base motives" requirement. It's interesting that he's not being prosecuted despite the charges being much more serious, while Groning is.

Dr. Joachim Neander once voiced the opinion that the zeal in going after people like Demjanjuk and now Groning was an attempt to "make up for letting big and medium fish getting away by going after little fish". I think he's right.

"On that day, 160 people in our village were muredered, including my five siblings -- two brothers and three sisters. The oldest was 19 and the youngest just three," says Oligeri.Neighboring villages experienced the same fate as SS troops beat, murdered and burned men, women and babies in that August of 1944. Some 560 people died in the mountain village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema on August 12 alone.

The crimes have never been atoned for nor have they been adequately addressed by the judiciary. An Italian court did sentence 10 of the SS thugs involved in the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre to life in prison in abstentia, but Germany never extradited them. And just recently, a court in Stuttgart refused to pursue the case, saying that murderous intent could not be proven.

In October 2012, when prosecutors in the southwestern German city of Stuttgart shelved an investigation against eight surviving soldiers who had participated in the gruesome massacre, it sparked an uproar in Italy. Italian President Giorgio Napolitano publicly criticized the decision not to put the men on trial.

The episode is one of the reasons why German President Joachim Gauck traveled to the mountain village in Tuscany a few weeks ago. At a monument commemorating the crime, he said it injures "our feeling of justice deeply whenever perpetrators cannot be convicted because the instruments of the constitutional state do not allow it."

But now Carlo Gentile, a Cologne-based historian working on behalf of an association of victims of the massacre in Sant'Anna di Stazzema, has released an official expert assessment of the surrounding legal drama. The document casts great doubts on the Stuttgart prosecutors' decision -- which could lead to a reopening of the investigation and legal proceedings.

Unknown or Ignored Clues

According to Gentile's findings, important documents and witness testimony was either "not at all known to" or ignored by investigators. The historian also faults prosecutors for supposedly having failed to pursue potentially useful clues. Prosecutors made "clear mistakes with regard to historical data," he charges, and did not take into consideration "the topography and the chronological sequence" of the massacre.

In his report, Gentile stressed that most of the eight surviving SS soldiers held leadership positions. What's more, he says that some of the soldiers participating in the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre also had "relevant experience with serving in concentration camps and military units known to have committed crimes."

Gentile criticized the investigators in Stuttgart for not having looked into "all the indications of the participation of SS and Wehrmacht units," the latter referring to Germany's WWII-era army. The German lawyer representing the victims' association says that he has forwarded a copy of Gentile's report to the public prosecutor's office in Stuttgart.

If I were a serious prosecutor, I would go for the much more serious crime. In this case, one that actually fulfills the requirements of a murder charge, instead of just one that's "only" an accessory. The leniency shown in this case really makes the attempts to prosecute Groning seem hollow, and shows that things haven't changed from the situation in the sixties and seventies.

Not from what I've read. The prosecution had asked for 3-1/2 years; the court imposed a 4-year sentence. Gröning's lawyers are expected to appeal, so he likely won't be imprisoned for now - perhaps never depending on how long the appeal takes and his health.

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

I believe that The Guardian headline is misleading and that Gröning is free while he decides whether to appeal. That is what the NY Times article says. And that he'd be free during any appeal.

I wanted to highlight three bits from The Guardian article:

Another view of a preferred outcome:

But 81-year-old Eva Mozes Kors, one of the co-plaintiffs who gave harrowing testimony in court earlier in the trial, criticised the sentence. “His value is not sitting in jail at the age of 94,” she said via email. “His value to society would be in speaking to students in person ... so that every time he lectures he relives those experiences. As it is, in jail he doesn’t have to talk about it – he can just rot away.”

Justice? (I don't know if these data are correct, but the Auschwitz figures are from the court's judgment):

The verdict makes Gröning the 6,657th person to be convicted of Nazi war crimes in Germany, out of a total of 172, 294 people who were investigated between 1945 and 2005.

He is only the 50th Auschwitz guard to have been convicted, out of 6,500 who have stood trial. Only a handful have served prison terms. Kompisch used his verdict to say: “A lot more could have been done.”

Explanation of the sentence:

Kompisch, who said the case had made a deep impact on him as a judge, affecting his “view of the world”, welcomed the fact that Gröning had stood up to his responsibilities by actively participating in the case – in stark contrast to John Demjanjuk, who during his 2012 trial in Munich for aiding and abetting the deaths of thousands of Jews in Sobibor, was wheeled into court on a gurney every day, and remained silent throughout.

Kompisch said Gröning’s cooperation had helped mitigate his sentence. “We also have to take into account your venerable age and that you probably won’t outlive your sentence,” he said, acknowledging that the trial had taken its toll on his health.

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

in 1983 Karl Frenzel was sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was immediately suspended due to his advanced age and poor health. Groning is 20 years older than Frenzel was at the time. I would hate to see him go to jail tbh, I appreciate the stand he took against denial.

From this article it appears that Ursula Haverbeck is not after all languishing in prison but is out and about and purveying her lies - last we'd heard of herlast we'd heard of her, Haverbeck had begun serving a 10 month prison sentence, for violating German "HD" laws, in November.

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944

This may not be popular but I think that trying these folks, nasty as they were, should not be tried at this point. I think a better approach would be to gather testimony and condemnations of HD, perhaps with offers of immunity.

IIRC Groning's case is on appeal, IDK if that means he is in the joint or out on bail.......

Haversback is sooooo stuuupid. Her stuff is all 80's ihr memes that have been debunked for eons. {!#%@}.

From statement made by Reinhold Hanning, former Auschwitz guard, in German court this week:

“People were being shot, gassed and burned. I could see corpses being moving around and off the site, yes, one was aware of that. I noticed the smell of burning. I knew that corpses were being burned,” he said.

“Of course I found out that trains arrived in Auschwitz crammed full of people. We were aware that the majority of people who arrived in the trains were killed.”

And:

“I deeply regret having been part of a criminal organisation responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people and destruction of countless families.”

"I'm of the opinion that every member of the guard battalion knew what was going on. This didn't depend upon one's own particular service. Naturally some comrades were closer to it and others less close. With close to it, I mean close to the killing."

Statistical Mechanic wrote:From statement made by Reinhold Hanning, former Auschwitz guard, in German court this week:

“People were being shot, gassed and burned. I could see corpses being moving around and off the site, yes, one was aware of that. I noticed the smell of burning. I knew that corpses were being burned,” he said.

“Of course I found out that trains arrived in Auschwitz crammed full of people. We were aware that the majority of people who arrived in the trains were killed.”

And:

“I deeply regret having been part of a criminal organisation responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people and destruction of countless families.”

"I'm of the opinion that every member of the guard battalion knew what was going on. This didn't depend upon one's own particular service. Naturally some comrades were closer to it and others less close. With close to it, I mean close to the killing."

He didn't give the dimensions of the rooms in Kremas II-V to the tenth of a meter; he never mentioned Zyklon B; he was unable to provide the dates and cities of origin of the supposed transports coming to Auschwitz; he didn't explain where the corpses were said to be burned; and he failed to state an accurate count of the total number of so-called victims. Besides, what do the words "gas," "killed,"and "burn" mean - how do we know when he used these words he was talking about mass murder in HGCs as maintained by hoaxers? More atrocity propaganda - hoaxers turning the benign and terrified words of a frail, old man threatened with victor's justice into a forced and dishonest apology.

You know, my dear Colonel General, I don't really believe that the Russians will attack at all. It's all an enormous bluff. - Heinrich Himmler to Heinz Guderian, December 1944